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Authors: Carolyn Mackler

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BOOK: Best Friend Next Door
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That, of course, brings me to the stinkiest of the stinks.

My dad and Margo having a you-know-what

I can’t even write the
B
-word.

I crumple up my paper and throw it into the trash can. Then I worry that someone will see it in the trash and read it. So I fish it out, tear the paper into tiny pieces, and sprinkle it like snowflakes back into the garbage.

“Hannah?” Margo calls upstairs. “I was just talking to Emme and her moms in their backyard. Emme asked if you want to come over and hang out.”

“Right now?” I ask. “Do I have time?”

“Just be home by eleven thirty to change into something nice and have lunch.”

My stomach flips over. Everyone who knows me knows that I live in jeans and shorts and sweatpants. I don’t even own a skirt. “Change?” I ask. “Am I supposed to get dressed up for this appointment?”

“It might be nice.” Margo pauses. I can hear her talking with my dad. “No, it’s okay. Wear whatever makes you comfortable.”

“The appointment is going to be easy, Hannah,” my dad says. “Nothing to worry about.”

Yeah, right.

Here’s the thing about Emme: She asks a ton of questions. She says that she inherited the interviewing trait from Julia, who is a journalist. And since Claire is a lawyer, Emme was basically born to cross-examine.

“What do you think?” Emme asks, holding up two strips of light blue paint samples. “I mean, what color do you like the most? Which one makes you think,
This is
a real bedroom
?”

We’re sprawled on the floor of Sophie’s old room. Butterball—yep, I’ve stopped thinking of him as Radar—is curled in my lap, purring happily. It’s the first time I’ve been up here since Sophie left. Emme’s got a bed with a stuffed rabbit on the pillow, a white dresser, and all these containers of art supplies. It’s strange to think this isn’t Sophie’s room anymore, especially since I can see the little green smiley face that Sophie once scribbled on the wall next to the closet door.

“What is it?” Emme asks, turning her head. “Are you looking at the smiley face on the wall?”

I nod. “Sophie drew it a long time ago. She was happy about something. I think the tooth fairy.”

“I was wondering about that,” Emme says. Then she turns back to me. “It’s probably weird to be here. Does it make you miss her?”

I pat Butterball’s soft belly. “It’s okay.”

“I miss my friends in Captiva. Sometimes I wonder what they think when they walk by my old house. We used to live two blocks from the beach.”

“That’s so cool,” I say.

I stretch across Emme’s rug. I’ve never met anyone before who lived on a tropical island. And I love the way Emme calls her moms
Mom C
and
Mom J
. She told me it used to be
Mama
and
Mommy
, but when that started sounding babyish she switched to
Mom C
and
Mom J
. It’s awesome that she got to pick what she calls her parents.

“So what do you think?” Emme slides the paint samples toward me. “Blue Allure or Gulf Stream? Those are my top choices.”

“Blue Allure,” I say. “It sounds mysterious.”

Emme nods. “Agreed.”

“I’m just glad you’re not painting the room pink.”

Emme pounds the floor with her hand. She does it so loudly that Butterball jumps off my lap and waddles from the room. “I can’t stand pink! Why does everyone think girls should like pink? It’s so annoying.”

“Agreed,” I say. “Completely.”

“I have an idea,” Emme says as she circles
Blue Allure
with a pen. “I’m going to take a survey of you and we’ll figure out everything we have in common. Are you ready?”

I stare curiously at Emme. This is totally not something Sophie would have done. Sophie was into watching reruns of
America’s Next Top Model
and trying on her mom’s makeup.

“You really want to interview me?” I ask.

“What else can we do? I can’t have any more screen time. My moms have cut off my iPad for the rest of the day.”

“How much time do you usually get?”

“Thirty minutes on weekends.” Emme sticks out her bottom lip like she’s pouting. “Basically nothing.”

“Me too!”

“Why am I not surprised?” Emme flops onto her elbows. “Okay, let’s get started. Your favorite color is also blue, right?”

“Blue Allure,” I say, giggling.

“And we’re both only children,” Emme says.

“Yep.” I stare down at my hands. It’s not like I have a brother or sister yet. I’m totally an only child. Completely.

“I know your favorite food is peanut butter,” Emme says. “Where were you born?”

I pause. I don’t really talk about that. My past, at least the first few months of my life, is kind of weird.

“Colorado,” I say quickly, hoping she doesn’t ask anything else about it.

“Darn. For me it was Florida. But isn’t it funny that we were born on the exact same day? What about art? Do you draw or paint?”

I glance at the sketches on Emme’s wall. If she did them herself, then she’s really talented. “No artistic abilities other than the time I made a double fishtail bracelet at day camp. What about you?”

“I love art. At least we’re different in a few ways. What’s your favorite palindrome?”

I pause to think. “I guess it would be
Did Hannah see bees? Hannah did
.”

“I love that one!” Emme says, grinning. “You can do it with
Emme
, too.”

“What about you?”

“I made one up when Butterball was missing. Or should we call him Radarball?”

I laugh. “
Butterball
is fine.”

“The one I made up was
doom mood
.”

I shake my head. “I was totally in a doom mood this morning.”

“Why?” Emme asks. Of course she does.

Just as I’m trying to figure out how NOT to explain my complicated life, Claire shouts upstairs, “Hannah! Your dad just called into the backyard. They need you at home. Something about an appointment?”

I hop up quickly. “I better go.”

“Go, dog,” Emme says, walking me to her bedroom door.

I stare at her for a second before I burst out laughing.

“Palindrome!” we both shout at the same time.

“Are you ready?” my dad asks, turning in the seat to look at me.

Margo is driving and my dad is in the passenger seat. My dad isn’t the typical dad who loves cars. He usually rides his bike everywhere, even to his office in downtown Greeley.

“I’m okay,” I say quietly. I chew on my thumbnail but then quickly pull it out of my mouth. It took all of third grade to quit that habit.

“Ryan just wants to meet you and say hi,” my dad says. “That’s it.”

Ryan is the lawyer they’ve hired to help Margo adopt me. Mostly they’re keeping me out of the legal stuff, but now that we’re getting closer to the adoption being finalized the lawyer wants to see if I have any questions.

“We’ll be in the appointment with you the whole time,” Margo says. “Ryan was nice enough to see us on a Saturday so we wouldn’t miss work and you wouldn’t miss school.”

“And think about this,” my dad says. “We’ll be one step closer to the adoption being official. All our paperwork is in order. The court date could even be this fall.”

I swallow hard and stare out the window. I’m not trying to be sulky. It’s just that, in moments like these, words leak out of my brain. I bet Emme doesn’t have that issue. She always seems to have something to say.

“Tell you what,” Margo says. “How about we swing by the house after the meeting and get our suits and go to the pool? The Y has family swim this afternoon.”

“Can Emme come?” I ask. “That might be fun.”

Margo nods and hands her phone to my dad. “Can you call Julia for me?” she asks. “The number is in my contacts.”

For some reason that makes me nervous. Like if Margo and Julia are talking on the phone, then maybe my stepmom is going to tell her about being pregnant. That would be terrible because I haven’t told Emme yet. I haven’t told Sophie, either, or anyone at school.

“Why do you have Emme’s mom’s number?” I ask.

“From when they called about Radar,” Margo says.

“Butterball,” I say.

“Hi,” my dad is saying into the phone. “This is Drew, Hannah’s dad. We wanted to see if we could take Emme to the pool this afternoon. The one at the YMCA?”

My dad turns to me. “Emme is shrieking in the background.”

“What’s she saying?” I ask.

“That’s wonderful,” my dad says to Emme’s mom. “How long was Emme on the swim team in Florida?”

“No way!” I shout. “She swims like me?”

“Yep,” my dad says, holding up a finger to me like
hang on
. “Emme is asking something. What’s that, Julia? She’s asking her mom to ask you if the pool is Blue Allure. Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Tell her yes,” I say, smiling. “Tell her the pool is totally Blue Allure.”

T
hat’s my spot,” Gina whispers to me as I’m sitting on the meeting rug with my notebook in my lap, waiting for the math lesson to start. “In case you haven’t figured that out.”

I jump a little. I hadn’t even seen her coming. I have the worst fifth-grade class ever (especially Gina, Alexa, and Haley). Even Ms. Linhart. It’s an all-around disaster.

“Yeah, Emme,” Alexa says, smirking at me. She has bright red hair and her two front teeth are so big they remind me of pieces of gum. “And I always sit next to Gina.”

I shrug and then slide forward so I’m in the front row of the rug. Closer to Ms. Linhart. Lovely Ms. Linhart. She’s tan with butterscotch-brown hair and tons of makeup. Also, she doesn’t smile. Not
once
in the whole month since school started.

Ms. Linhart starts talking about decimals. I try to pay attention but occasionally I glance out the window. It’s been raining for a week straight. Hannah says that’s not typical weather for fall in Greeley. When I talked to Olivia and Lucy, they told me how they’d just spent the day on a sailboat in the bay. If I were in Captiva right now, I’d be—

“Emme,” Ms. Linhart says. She flicks her long hair over her shoulder. “Where are you? Are you with us?”

I feel Gina staring hard at my back. She’s the worst, but no one in my class is very nice. They either ignore me or act like I’m weird because I’m not from Greeley. No one seems to care that I have two moms. It’s more like they have a problem with
me
. Like I can’t seem to do anything right. Hannah is lucky she got Mr. Bryce. Whenever I walk by her classroom, everyone’s laughing and chatting and listening to music.

I raise my hand.

“Yes.” Ms. Linhart blinks slowly at me. “Emme?”

“Can I go to the bathroom?” I ask. I just need a minute to be alone and collect myself. Not to mention that I have to pee. That happens when I’m nervous. I have to go every ten minutes.


Can
you?” Ms. Linhart asks, raising her thin eyebrows. “I certainly hope you can go to the bathroom by this point. The correct question is
may I?

“O.M.G.” Gina says. I can hear her high-pitched giggle right behind me. Other people are laughing, too. My cheeks get warm and tears are stinging my eyes.

BOOK: Best Friend Next Door
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ads

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